Smart phones, tablets and other mobile computing devices are popular platforms for displaying digital assets, such as a digital poster, e-newspaper article, electronic essay paper or other content. One common problem encountered when designing such assets, particularly when using a mobile device, is that it is difficult to see the effect of text on the overall page layout. Some existing design techniques, such as found in Microsoft PowerPoint, include creating an empty text box and typing text into the text box. The text box defines the region of the page in which text is displayed. After typing the text, changes to the text can be made by highlighting the text, opening a property window or drop-down menu and changing the properties of the text accordingly. Such changes can be accomplished using interactive tools that are designed to work with mouse and keyboard input devices. As such, it may take, for example, six or seven clicks or keystrokes to see how the changes applied to the text affect the overall design. Thus, there is a need for improved techniques for seeing the effect of changes to text during a design process in a mobile device that is fast, interactive and requires a minimal number of user inputs.